Sick of unfocused, unproductive meetings? The average office meeting is a modern-day implement of torture, dragging on forever while everyone talks in circles and your annoying coworker (yeah, there’s one in every crowd) hijacks the meeting with his ramblings.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. A well-run meeting will last a bearable amount of time, get everyone aligned and on the same page, and develop clear next steps for what you’re trying to achieve together.
A nonrestrictive phrase adds a little bit of extra (but not essential) information about a noun phrase that you’ve already mentioned in your sentence.
Short stories often go underappreciated, but they represent an art form few authors truly master. For readers, the short story is the perfect literary snack, a choice morsel that fills a spare hour, refreshes the brain, and gives a moment of escape from daily routines. When you need something to nibble and lack the time for a novel, feast your eyes on these tiny tomes with outsized impact.
This week, Svetlana Alexievich broke new ground in the literary world by becoming the first journalist to win the Nobel Prize for her nonfiction writing. In other news, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival has commissioned a rewrite of Shakespeare’s plays and the Internet can be both a friend and foe when it comes to your writing. Check out the full stories below:
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (A Song of Ice and Fire) (Fiction) George R.
It’s that rare, beautiful Monday when you make it to the office early. Your commute wasn’t as vexing as usual, your coffee’s still hot, and no one is around yet. Your heart races at this delicious opportunity to get some actual work done without the usual distractions.
You peel open your laptop only to discover twenty-seven unread emails. Your shoulders slump in despair.
The past tense of the verb lead is led, not lead. One reason for the confusion might be that a similar verb, read, has an infinitive that’s spelled the same as the past tense. But with lead, that’s not how things are.
Led is the past tense of the verb lead:
Every creative person is subject to the whims of a fickle muse that doesn’t always show up when we need it to. Fortunately, there are ways to make our minds a more hospitable place for ideas. Read on for twenty-one easy tips that will help you make inspiration a more frequent guest.
1 Listen to music.
Multiple studies show that music can increase creativity and focus.
Beside and besides are quite commonly confused with one another despite their different definitions. Even though they are spelled almost the same, they are not used in the same way.
Beside, without the s, tells us the location of something. Besides, on the other hand, means “in addition,” “in addition to,” “moreover,” or “as well,” depending on context.
Resumes are tricky things. The tried-and-true resume tropes of old no longer make the cut in today’s competitive market.
Odds are good that your resume will go through an applicant tracking system scan to determine whether it contains the right keywords before it even hits a hiring manager’s desk. But let’s assume you’ve passed that test and your resume is awaiting review.
Is there a foolproof strategy for remembering irregular verbs? Absolutely. Just memorize them! Of course, that’s easier said than done. Do memory tricks actually work? Why not try to create a mnemonic for each of these common irregular verbs?
Henry L. Roediger III, a psychology professor at Washington University’s Memory Lab, confirms that songs help encode information into the hippocampus and frontal cortex of the brain.
It seems that people not only care about using grammar, but also about using it correctly.
(Photo source: http://www.etsy.com/listing/104421575/notebook-dear-people-of-the-world)
On Monday, we ran an informal poll on our Facebook page. After a recent article in the Huffington post discussing an increased demand for grammar study in education, we asked our followers: “Do you think studying grammar in school is important?” The results were unsurprising, but overwhelmingly one-sided.
You’ve been invited to a second interview—well done! But don’t get too comfortable just yet. If you’ve been asked to interview a second time, you’re likely up against the company’s top few candidates. That means the stakes are higher than ever, and you need to prepare to give the interview all you’ve got.
Think of the first interview as the getting-to-know-you phase.
You are a writer. You enjoy what you do, and you do it well. So, what do you love most about writing? Could you pick one specific thing? Are we speaking of fiction, nonfiction or poetry? Essays maybe? Where does editing fit in here? Be careful, it quickly becomes a complicated question.
If we parse out all of the elements of writing, there are literally thousands of specific mechanics from which we could choose.
Do you like avocado enough to trade your house for it?
Some people face this choice every day, according to one prosperous CEO, Tim Gurner. In an interview with an Australian news show, the thirty-something millionaire blamed avocado toast and fancy coffee for this generation’s lack of funds.
“When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn’t buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each,” Gurner said.
It might start out resembling a normal workday.
Being a freelance writer is easy, and nothing ever goes wrong, you tell yourself.
You’re there. The requisite coffee is there. The well-worn keyboard sits just below the screen, which pulses steadily with notifications of various tasks, deadlines, and expectations. You’re used to this. Some part of you might even feed on it.
The words disinterested and uninterested are sometimes used as if they have the same meaning. But there is a difference, and to avoid confusion, you should be aware of what that difference is.
When someone doesn’t have a vested interest in a matter, or doesn’t have a horse in that race, we can say that this person is disinterested.
This poll is part of a series that Grammarly is running aimed at better understanding how the public feels about writing, language learning, and grammar.
Please take the poll and share your thoughts in the comments. We can’t wait to hear from you!
If you are interested in more, check out last week’s poll.
Happy Dictionary Day!
October 16, 1758, was the birthdate of the American lexicographer Noah Webster. If you’ve ever wondered who decided that Americans should write color while the British write colour, Noah Webster is your guy.
To celebrate our love of lexicography, here are ten wonderful words to add to your vocabulary today:
Antipode n. A direct or extreme opposite.
Geoff Foster, of The Wall Street Journal’s “The Count” sports column, collaborated with Grammarly, the popular automated proofreader, to put NFL fans to the test. Each official NFL team site was analyzed looking at the top 150 fan comments (10,000+ words) for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors.
Grammarly ranked all 32 NFL team fan bases from worst to best. Whose smack talk was the most eloquent?
